Haas have announced Pietro Fittipaldi will remain at the team for a fifth year in a development role.
He joined Haas as a test driver at the end of 2018 and was promoted to the reserve driver role in 2020.That year he raced in the Sakhir and Abu Dhabi grands prix for the team as a substitute for the injured Romain Grosjean. Fittipaldi finished 17th and 19th respectively in his two appearances.
As he has not made any F1 starts since, the 26-year-old is still eligible to appear for Haas as a junior driver in the two practice sessions teams teams must set aside to run inexperienced racers in place of their usual pairing.
“I’m very happy to be continuing with the Haas F1 Team, a team that I consider family,” said Fittipaldi, the grandson of two-times F1 world champion Emerson
“It will be my fifth season in F1 as the official reserve and test driver for Haas and I’m super-excited to be going into 2023 coming off the back of a very competitive season.
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“Last year I did two free practice sessions, tested at the beginning of the year and at the end-of-season test so we’ve already been able to try some stuff for the new season. I’m excited to see the new car and new developments, and I hope that we’re able to make an even bigger step forward with the [2023 car, the Haas] VF-23.”
Although there have been no guarantee from Haas that Fittipaldi will get F1 seat time with them this year, they did state he will “play an operational role on-track throughout the season” in addition to being called up to “support the team with commercial and digital duties off-track”.
Fittipaldi will participate in the LMP2 prototype sports car class of IMSA, with Rick Ware Racing, and the World Endurance Championship, with Jota Sport, this year. He will therefore not be available to Haas as reserve driver for the Saudi Arabian, Azerbaijan, British, Hungarian, Dutch, Singapore and Brazilian grands prix.
In previous years, Fittipaldi has combined his Haas duties with racing in the DTM, IndyCar, the European Le Mans Series and Stock Car Brasil.
View the current list of 2023 F1 drivers and teams
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Qeki (@qeki)
24th January 2023, 14:47
Is he slowly becoming a new badoer for Haas
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
24th January 2023, 15:18
Fittipaldi is mostly there for the money, I assume. Badoer, for as much flack as he gets, was just a really solid development driver willing to run Ferrari’s around empty test tracks for days (and nights) on end.
So no, I don’t think that’s a fair comparison.
Chris Horton
26th January 2023, 10:39
Badoer was a huge part of Ferrari’s success with the sheer amount of testing he did. A very good test driver who put a huge amount of effort in.
When he stepped in for Massa in 2009, he hadn’t started a Grand Prix since the 1999 Japanese GP, it’s hardly surprising he was off the pace. Keep in mind that even when Fisichella stepped into that seat he finished 9,13,12,10,16. Clearly not an easy car.
Also Paul Di Resta stepped in for Massa in the 2017 Williams, he struggled.
For balance, Hulkenberg was obviously more successful when he stepped in at various times through covid but I think ultimately F1 is extremely competitive and the intricacies of individual cars make it usually very difficult to parachute into someone’s seat and do a good job.
Qeki (@qeki)
26th January 2023, 22:24
Fair points
Jere (@jerejj)
24th January 2023, 15:29
Unsurprising & while teams need a reserve driver, this particular position will become redundant in the long term if a given driver never becomes or re-becomes a full-time driver.
Rick
24th January 2023, 20:45
What is he developing certainly not his career.